T Bone Burnett

When Joel and Ethan Coen first asked him to take a supporting role in The Big Lebowski as Theodore Donald Kerabatsos, the mild-mannered, oft-dismissed bowling enthusiast who succumbs to a heart attack while fighting a trio of nihilists, Steve Buscemi didn’t recognize their invitation as a ticket to immortality. If anything, his gut told him to decline.

“I remember thinking that I didn’t want to play this part,” he says now, reunited on the stage of New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom with principal members of the Lebowski cast and crew – including Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, John Turturro, Julianne Moore and musical director T Bone Burnett – to celebrate the movie’s Aug. 16 premiere on Blu-ray.